The Eagles could face a battle with two different and difficult ruck opponents on Sunday
West Coast big man Matt Flynn and sidekick Bailey Williams will do their homework on Essendon’s dangerous ruck duo ahead of a potentially decisive battle at Marvel Stadium on Sunday.
Flynn and Williams have partnered in the ruck for the past two matches and are building on their synergy, splits up forward and on the interchange.
With the Bombers a chance to regain Sam Draper from injury, they could throw a different look at West Coast’s bigs, with veteran recruit Todd Goldstein performing admirably at his new club.
“You come across a lot of different rucks and you don’t really get too many that are so different in the same game,” Flynn said.
“It will be interesting. If ‘Goldy’ does the majority of the ruck, that’s probably someone I will go to and then ‘Baz’ his athleticism, speed and agility probably matches up a little bit better to Draper.
“Whether that’s the way we go … is a question we’ll find out.”
Flynn believed the Eagles had handled the bye well with a blend of time away from the club to mentally refresh combined with some tough training.
West Coast were put through their paces in a searching session on Saturday, which co-captain Oscar Allen came through with flying colours to raise hopes he will return from a three-month knee injury.
The mix of talls and smalls in the side will be a good problem for coach Adam Simpson and the match committee to work through before selection.
“(Allen) has obviously still got to get through training on Thursday. We’re blessed at the moment to have a lot of healthy players, especially in those taller stocks which has been a struggle in the past,” Flynn said.
“I think ‘Simmo’ has got a bit of a task on his hands to fit them all in. I’m not quite sure what the answer is but it will be interesting to see how he goes with that.
“Our lead up to the bye wasn’t great, we had a couple of poor performances and we had a win in there too which was great but we feel like we left a couple on the table there the last two rounds.
“We came in hungry in the bye and the boys had a good session. We’re keen to get across to Melbourne this week under the roof at Marvel and put our best foot forward.
“I’m really confident we’ve done the right thing, we’ve trained hard but we’ve had some time away from the club.”